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(2013) Bergson and the metaphysics of media, Dordrecht, Springer.
Simon Critchley has recently argued that we should abandon a whole tradition that sees philosophy originate in wonder.1 It is common to suppose that speculative thought begins with the awe we feel in the sublimity of nature, or the expanse of the universe, or the impenetrability of an others' gaze. The philosophical impulse today originates instead, Critchley argues, in a sense of failure. The promise of modern philosophy from the Enlightenment on is to liberate us from our self-imposed domination, as Kant put it. The barbarism of global capitalism, our ineptitude in controlling the risk of industrial life, the collapse of the grand narratives that underwrote our belief in progress and human science — all of these breakdowns conspire to make us wonder about the relation of life and the artful designs we impose upon it.
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Full citation:
Crocker, S. (2013). Conclusion: on failure and wonder, in Bergson and the metaphysics of media, Dordrecht, Springer, pp. 158-160.
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